Drawing upon the underlying themes of ECER 2008 conference, this paper aims at carrying out a descriptive analysis on the methods that were incorporated to enhance the trustworthiness and credibility of a case study which was conducted in the form of a participatory action research within qualitative research paradigm. The focus of the research was to promote, analyse and understand reflective thinking among pre-service teachers in a four-year English language teaching programme. While doing so, as fundamental to qualitative research, throughout the study, multiple methods of in-depth inquiry, such as interviews, document analysis, and observations were incorporated into the study over a period of time. This allowed the researcher to explore and understand the complex phenomena in an in-depth manner, and it contributed to the accuracy of the meaning making process (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998; Marshall & Rossman, 1999; Yildirim & Simsek, 2001). Participatory action research is regarded to be the most widely practiced type of participatory research. Here, the multiple roles of individuals – researchers; teachers; and teachers of teachers – create a situation-related in-depth perspective, which is key to exploring complex relationships (Putnam & Borko, 2000). It emphasizes empowerment, through the construction and use of knowledge, and it focuses on the lived experiences of participants. Hence, this leads to raising consciousness through self-inquiry and reflection, which is referred to as “conscientization” by Freire (1970, cited in Reason, 1994). However, there are challenges that are often put forward against action research with regard to its validity and reliability. Taking these challenges into consideration and in an effort to enhance trustworthiness, this research embodied a set of methods in data collection and data analysis procedures in order to increase its credibility. These methods are as follows: triangulation which was implemented throughout the data collection process through seeking data from multiple data sources using multiple methods such as journal entries, recorded interviews and perception questionnaires; peer-debriefing which involved observations in the research group conducted by experienced colleagues and which was followed by unstructured recorded interviews; inter-rating and inter-coding during the data analysis process which was conducted by colleagues who had experience in qualitative research; audit trial that was carried out by a colleague who was familiar with qualitative research and that was done once the paper was completed along with the provision of the raw and analyzed data; and prolonged engagements where the researcher lived among the participants as their course instructor for an extended period of time. In this paper, the implementation of each of these above mentioned methods in the study is described in detail and their contribution to the enhancement of trustworthiness is discussed comprehensively.

The multiple methods that were incorporated into the study contributed positively to the trustworthiness of the study.